<bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Background</b>: Corporations are increasingly leveraging social media to communicate their corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and corporate ability (CA) messages. Concurrently, the overseas expansion of Chinese corporations is significantly affecting global environmental sustainability and CSR practices. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Literature review:</b> Drawing upon the conceptual framework of stakeholder engagement proposed by Kujala et al., this study measures the engagement effects of specific CSR/CA topics communicated by Chinese corporations on Facebook. Although previous research has compared the effectiveness of CSR and CA topics, it has resulted in a lack of consistent findings on which specific CSR/CA topics spark more responses from stakeholders. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Research questions:</b> 1. Which CSR/CA topics are likely to generate the higher amount of public engagement (measured by the count of likes, shares, and comments) on social media? 2. Which CSR/CA topics are likely to elicit comments with the most positive tone on social media? 3. Does the tone of corporate posts correlate with that of the public comments that they evoke? <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Research methodology:</b> Using content and sentiment analysis, this study examined 11,628 corporate posts and 235,976 fan comments on the Facebook accounts of 34 large Chinese corporations to investigate the influence of message topics and emotions on public responses. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Results:</b> The results indicated that CA topics elicited more responses than CSR topics did, but public comments on the latter were more favorable. Among the CSR topics, “public health commitment” generated the most responses, and “supporting cultural/sport events” received the most favorable comments. “Industry leadership” generated more favorable comments than other CA topics did. Overall, topics differed significantly in terms of the number of responses and the tone of comments that they yielded. The tone of CSR posts was positively correlated with the tone of the ensuing public comments, but such a relationship was not observed with CA posts. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Conclusion:</b> Corporations should constantly scrutinize stakeholder responses to different topics posted on their social media accounts and adjust topic proportions accordingly to optimize communication outcomes. Scholars can enrich theories of Western roots through Eastern perspectives by studying how Chinese corporations communicate messages globally.

<bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><i>Background:</i></b> Technologies are increasingly being deployed in facilitating participatory healthcare. Global governments developed a variety of digital platforms, such as mobile contact tracing apps, to help the public navigate risks and uncertainties during the COVID-19 pandemic. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><i>Literature review:</i></b> Contrary to normative approaches to information design (IxD), the global spread of COVID-19 revealed the need for an alternative design framework (i.e., concept-driven design) to help develop mobile health (mHealth) apps that can support a broader portrayal of information value in IxD. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><i>Research questions:</i></b> 1. In response to COVID-19, what affordances are prioritized by the designers of these global mHealth apps? What do these priorities tell us about design intents and information value? 2. What interpretive framework can we use to understand mHealth designers’ intent across different geopolitical contexts? <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><i>Research methodology:</i></b> We captured screenshots of the three apps in the US, India, and China, as well as a website in Ghana. Using touchpoints as the unit of analysis, we conducted an inventory and affinity mapping to visualize the architecture of each app and categorize touchpoints based on their affordances. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><i>Results:</i></b> The comparison of apps across countries displays shared and divergent priorities in their touchpoints, affordances, and information depth. We developed an interpretive framework for understanding mHealth design intent across numerous contexts—Common Interpretive Framework for Design Analysis (CIFDA)—incorporating both linear analysis and recursive analysis of touchpoints, affordances, and depth. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><i>Conclusions:</i></b> Touchpoints in mHealth applications can be designed, but they can also be measured and analyzed, and they can in return help us understand the designer's intent and expected user experience.

As the technical and professional communication (TPC) field has evolved in response to broader changes in the world economy, numerous professions have arisen within its ranks that coexist with the traditional roles of technical writer and technical editor. These include instructional design, content strategy, and user-experience (UX) design [1], [2]. A unique challenge for TPC is to include training in numerous professions within a single college major or program. Some programs have chosen to focus on specific professions, even going so far as to rename their program around that profession. Others have continued to focus broadly on the overall field while updating their curricula as needed to serve students seeking training in a particular career path.

<bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Background:</b> The relationships between US government emergency management agencies and the public they serve are fraught with distrust and tension. This distrust can be attributed to past disaster responses and a lack of transparency with emergency information. Emergency managers work as technical communicators to share information through multiple platforms and digital spaces. Public trust can be increased by improving communication strategies within emergency management organizations. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Literature review:</b> Research to improve communication between emergency management agencies and the public calls for more trust and transparency within government organizations. However, little research has been conducted about the ways an organization's structure and workflow influence communication practices/strategies. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Research questions:</b> 1. How do emergency management organizations share information about natural disasters with the public? 2. How can communication strategies and workflow in emergency management organizations be improved? <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Research methodology:</b> Clay Spinuzzi's topsight is used as a framework to conduct an organizational analysis of North Carolina Emergency Management (NCEM) response to Hurricane Florence in 2018. Interviews were conducted and artifacts were collected to investigate Spinuzzi's three levels of activity and create corresponding workflow diagrams. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Results:</b> Results indicate a need for standardized emergency management training and additional resources to support emergency managers. Interventions from technical and professional communicators can assist in developing communication strategies and problem-solving techniques. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Conclusion:</b> Developing informed communication strategies within an emergency management agency is a complex problem because of the numerous factors that play into the organizational structure and existing protocols. Technical communication scholars can help improve communication practices through local community outreach and additional organizational analyses.

This book provides an up-to-date, practical, and accessible description of the world of collaboration in work. The book aids readers in developing their awareness of the intricate area of collaboration, identifying the difficulties involved and discovering doable strategies for strategically promoting it to achieve their collaborative goals. As much as the book is about the collaborative writing process, at its core it is a book about authorship—or at least the concept of authorship. This book gives readers the chance to examine how they think about partnerships that produce valuable outcomes, such as text documents. This book’s six chapters are classified into two parts: the more theory-focused speculations and the more practical-focused enactments. This book is certainly an excellent resource for encouraging successful collaborations in the workplace, but by covering only a few real situations, the information it conveys will be more accessible to nonprofessionals. Students from diverse fields, such as engineering, who are not experts, will not understand constructs, such as actor network theory, which is widely used in the social sciences. Real-world examples will help readers from other fields grasp this book because it is applicable to a wide range of readers. Overall, the book serves as a very helpful manual for encouraging long-term, fruitful collaborations that produce synergy among contributors and innovative results. Successful partnerships will encourage other people to start, sustain, and advance collaborations to new levels.

<bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Research questions:</b> 1. How can we address issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in our business and technical communication service courses? 2. How can we help prepare future engineers, technical professionals, and managers to create more inclusive and equitable workplaces?. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Situating the case:</b> The social justice literature in technical and professional communication (TPC) has focused on a variety of areas, including research methods, user experience, and expanding what can and should be identified as TPC. Emerging research has turned toward pedagogy as an interventional strategy for educating on issues of racial justice and inclusion. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">About the case:</b> This teaching case presents the transformation of a TPC service course to specifically address issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). In response to the racial injustice documented during the summer of 2020, I developed a sequence of assignments that asked students to research and apply DEI initiatives. The assignment was to research and write a short report on DEI approaches in the workplace, followed by a larger team-based project in which students worked with the local city council to enact possible DEI initiatives in the broader community. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Methods:</b> The case was studied through the author's experience and the analysis of data obtained from surveys with class participants and other instructors who incorporated the assignments in their courses. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Results/discussion:</b> Students were able to learn more about how to address bias, inclusion, and social justice in a business environment, but also demonstrated some implicit resistance to direct attention to racial injustice. The case study humanizes and brings home issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion for students who might otherwise consider them only in the abstract.

Background: Visualizations are used to communicate data about important political, social, environmental, and health topics to a wide range of audiences; however, perceptions of graphs as objective conduits of factual data make them an easy means for spreading misinformation. Research questions: 1. Are people deceived by common deceptive tactics or exaggerated titles used in data visualizations about non-controversial topics? 2. Does a person's previous data visualization coursework mitigate the extent to which they are deceived by deceptive tactics used in data visualizations? 3. What parts of data visualizations (title, shape, data labels) do people use to answer questions about the information being presented in data visualizations? Literature review: Although scholarship from psychology, human-computer interaction, and computer science has examined how data visualizations are processed by readers, scholars have not adequately researched how susceptible people are to a range of deceptive tactics used in data visualizations, especially when paired with textual content. Methodology: Participants (n = 329) were randomly assigned to view one of four treatments for four different graph types (bar, line, pie, and bubble) and then asked to answer a question about each graph. Participants were asked to rank the ease with which they read each graph and comment on what they used to respond to the question about each graph. Results/Discussion: Results show that deceptive tactics caused participants to misinterpret information in the deceptive versus control visualizations across all graph types. Neither graph titles nor previous coursework impacted responses for any of the graphs. Qualitative responses illuminate people's perceptions of graph readability and what information they use to read different types of graphs. Conclusions: Recommendations are made to improve data visualization instruction, including critically examining software defaults and the ease with which people give agency over to software when preparing data visualizations. Avenues of future research are discussed.

This index covers all technical items - papers, correspondence, reviews, etc. - that appeared in this periodical during the year, and items from previous years that were commented upon or corrected in this year. Departments and other items may also be covered if they have been judged to have archival value. The Author Index contains the primary entry for each item, listed under the first author's name. The primary entry includes the co-authors' names, the title of the paper or other item, and its location, specified by the publication abbreviation, year, month, and inclusive pagination. The Subject Index contains entries describing the item under all appropriate subject headings, plus the first author's name, the publication abbreviation, month, and year, and inclusive pages. Note that the item title is found only under the primary entry in the Author Index.

This special issue on user-generated content and its effect on the profession asks, “What might professional technical communicators do with user-produced documentation?” The question is both descriptive—what can technical communicators do with UGC?—and normative—what should technical communicators do with UGC? Answering it requires taking stock of the multiple roles that technical writers play within and outside To serve effectively in these roles, technical communicators must listen to what users are saying. Yet, despite their best efforts, technical communicators have not always been able to anticipate users’ needs [11]—and some users may simply want to learn how to operate the technology in the way that the inventors intended [12]. UGC might offer a glimpse into some users’ narratives, but it is up to professional technical communicators to determine how those narratives fit into the mosaic of users’ experiences with a product or service. These are the concerns that contributors grapple with in this special issue.

Background: Professional communication instructors give profuse feedback on student writing in service or introductory courses; however, professional communication has traditionally borrowed feedback practices from first-year writing. In addition, professional communication instructors have relied on lore instead of data when giving students feedback. Literature review: Three recent studies examine the content of feedback comments given by professional communication instructors; nevertheless, these studies open questions about how professional communication instructors enact their pedagogical values when giving feedback. Research questions: 1. What do instructors value when teaching professional communication service courses? 2. What do instructors emphasize in their feedback? 3. To what extent do instructors' values align with the feedback that they give on students' writing? Research methodology: To answer these questions, this pilot study does close qualitative work to test interview questions and a coding scheme formed by inductive content analysis. I triangulated four interviews about instructors' pedagogical values with content analysis of their 599 feedback comments on students' writing. Results and discussion: The results reveal three implications: Rhetorical terminology may contradict the goals of professional communication, overly conversational or directive feedback may not give students tools to improve their writing, and borrowing pedagogical training from first-year composition may not prepare instructors to teach professional communication. Conclusion: Tensions between instructors' values and their feedback comments highlight a lack of consensus about professional communication's pedagogical values for the service course, particularly higher order values, such as audience analysis or purpose through giving feedback.

Reaching Out GloballyIEEE's vision is to "be essential to the global technical community and to technical professionals everywhere, and be universally recognized for the contributions of technology and of technical professionals in improving global conditions."Like its parent organization, the IEEE Professional Communication Society has been working for more than two decades to address the needs of engineers and professional and technical communicators worldwide by making research in our discipline available to those who need to use it.In our TRANSACTIONS, we have published the work of increasing numbers of authors from outside North America, particularly from Europe and Asia, and have likewise added representation from these two continents to our Editorial Board.Although we recognize that English is the lingua franca of business, science, and technology these days, we also know that not everyone who is a potential member of the TRANSACTIONS audience reads and comprehends English fluently.Even for those with fair proficiency, reading only the abstract of a journal article may require time and attention that are in short supply.Being able to review abstracts more quickly should increase research efficiency although the full text of the articles is in English.

Introduction: Group projects are a common pedagogical tool for technical and professional communication courses. These projects provide students with valuable learning experiences that they would not otherwise receive working individually. However, student group projects come with some unique challenges, such as unequal distribution of work, unequal levels of learning, and perceptions of fairness. Situating the case: While many instructor-led resources and strategies exist for facilitating group projects, fewer student-empowering strategies exist. Data provide one potential way to empower students to take ownership of their team experience and make more informed decisions throughout the teamwork process. About the case: This teaching case was born out of a response to the many teamwork problems that are outlined in the literature and that the author has observed as an instructor. This teaching case describes the implementation and outcomes of a data-driven framework for decision making called collect, analyze, triangulate, and act (CAT) that the author developed. After they learned about the CATA framework, the students completed a series of data-driven exercises during the team formation, team functioning, and team evaluation stages of the team project. Perceptions of CATA's effectiveness were collected after the project ended. Methods: A mixed-methods approach, which included a survey and a series of interviews, was used to gain insights into how both team members and team leaders perceived the CATA framework. Results: Survey results indicated that students found the CATA framework helpful in many team contexts. Students expressed particularly strong opinions about how CATA aided in the fairness and accuracy of peer evaluations, was helpful for self-reflection, and was useful for making informed arguments to convince team members of a decision. Interviews with team leaders revealed that appealing to data using the CATA framework was helpful in managing the team but had limited capacity to aid in managing conflict. Conclusions: Students realized many benefits from the CATA framework, and some team leaders even felt empowered in certain instances by appealing to data. However, instructors should still consider scaffolding data literacy and teamwork skills for students to be fully prepared for successful teamwork.

This book consists of a collection of narratives on the subject of scientific writing skill needs compiled by the author through more than 100 interviews with senior scientists, emerging (early career) scientists, and recent Ph.D. graduates, all of whom would be appropriate audiences of the book. It is an interesting amalgam of opinions from the scientific community about technical writing, its importance, the breadth of writing opportunities, and the authors’ enjoyment—or lack thereof. While oriented toward science, it could easily be expanded to the entire spectrum of STEM fields. Through her informal approach, the author achieves her purpose of exposing diverse opinions on the need for and acceptance of technical writing within the scientific community. While the book might not fit nicely into a technical writing course, it can provide valuable insight into technical writing needs beyond university undergraduate and graduate students. The author, through the use of interviews and narrative summaries, has provided a view of technical writing as accomplished by three levels of scientists, where personal opinions of the scientists are supported by the level of success achieved by the individual respondent. This book could be used for a course in technical writing in a number of ways, especially at the undergraduate level, either as a reference text or as the primary text for the course. To begin with, the material in the book is based upon the contributors’ years of experience. In some cases, that could mean many years of technical writing not only within a particular field of interest, but in other genres or subject matters, based upon the individual’s experiences. A professor teaching the technical writing class may have limited experience in the world of publishing papers, books, or other technical matter. An assignment for a class could be to pick one of the respondents in the book, and develop a detailed description of his or her beliefs and approaches to technical writing. Such an assignment could then lead into a class discussion on the importance of technical writing in one’s career as supported by the text.

<bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Background:</b> This study investigates linguistic characterizations in the form of linguistic co-occurrence patterns in discussion sections of English research articles (RAs) in an engineering discipline (i.e., chemical engineering) and linguistic variations that distinguish discussion sections of high-impact articles from those in low-impact articles. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Research questions:</b> 1. What underlying linguistic characterizations are salient in RA discussions in chemical engineering? 2. Are there any differences in the identified linguistic characterizations of discussion sections between high- and low-impact RAs? <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Literature review:</b> In the process of composing RAs, the discussion section is a difficult and challenging part-genre to write. The rhetorical organization of RA discussions has been examined extensively through Swales's English for Specific Purposes genre analysis. However, the linguistic characterizations of RA discussion sections remain unclear and the question of whether discernible differences exist between discussions of high- and low-impact RAs in a specialized engineering discipline remains unanswered. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Methodology:</b> This study used Biber's multidimensional (MD) analysis method. In response to the first research question, factor analysis (in this study, principal component analysis) was adopted to identify the linguistic characterizations in the form of linguistic co-occurrence patterns (“dimensions”) in 213 RA discussion sections extracted from chemical engineering RAs. To answer the second question, the independent t-test was implemented to compare the high- and low-impact RA discussion sections in the identified dimensions. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Results and conclusions:</b> Six linguistic characterizations in the form of linguistic co-occurrence patterns were identified in RA discussion sections: 1. involvement and interactivity, 2. non-narration versus narration, 3. evaluative statements with further explanations and elaborations, 4. informational density, 5. stating results/claims, and 6. expression of denial relationships toward statement or experimental findings. The results suggest the linguistic characterizations in RA discussion sections and interesting differences in the high- and low-impact RA discussion sections, especially in Dimensions 1, 3, and 5. Reasons for the linguistic variations in the identified dimensions are discussed, followed by the pedagogical implications for reading or writing RAs for international scientific communication.

This study aims to delineate the rhetorical organization of research article (RA) discussion sections in an engineering discipline and explore the variations that distinguish discussion sections of high-impact and low-impact RAs. Research questions: What is the rhetorical organization of RA discussions in chemical engineering? What are the similarities and differences in the use of rhetorical moves and steps in RA discussions of high-impact and low-impact articles? Literature review: Some studies have been conducted using Swales' move analysis with regard to the identification and textual comparisons of RA discussion sections. However, it remains to be determined whether RA discussions of the high- and low-impact articles within a single discipline display the variation in rhetorical patterns. Research methodology: A total of 40 RA discussions published between 2005 and 2015 were chosen based on five-year journal impact factor and citations of the articles in which they were published. Swales' move analysis was used to compare rhetorical moves and steps in both sets of RA discussions. Results and discussion: The study identified the rhetorical organization of RA discussions in the field of chemical engineering. The findings indicate that discussion sections of high-impact articles tend to make use of the “comment on results” move. Explanations of the similarities and differences in the employment of moves and steps are provided. Implications of the findings are discussed.

This index covers all technical items - papers, correspondence, reviews, etc. - that appeared in this periodical during the year, and items from previous years that were commented upon or corrected in this year. Departments and other items may also be covered if they have been judged to have archival value. The Author Index contains the primary entry for each item, listed under the first author's name. The primary entry includes the co-authors' names, the title of the paper or other item, and its location, specified by the publication abbreviation, year, month, and inclusive pagination. The Subject Index contains entries describing the item under all appropriate subject headings, plus the first author's name, the publication abbreviation, month, and year, and inclusive pages. Note that the item title is found only under the primary entry in the Author Index.

Research problem: In the current information age, people are increasingly accustomed to sharing their special interests online and are influenced by the relationships developed from that sharing. The purpose of this study was to better measure peer influence in these online communities. Research questions: 1. How can peer influence in online communities be measured in a way that comprehensively incorporates peer-based characteristics, the homophily effect, and the structural position of a user in the network? 2. Is the method proposed in this study superior to other existing methods? Literature review: Previous literature on measuring online user influence can be classified into two streams: 1. Those that focus on the intrinsic characteristics of social media players to measure peer influence; 2. Those that address social network structure. Relevant computing algorithms include Topic-Based PageRank, Quality-Structure index, and so on. Although the first stream considers afocal peer's intrinsic characteristics, it overlooks the interpeer attraction in terms of similarity and discrepant knowledge among peers. The second stream mostly stresses the structures of social networks to measure network-wide peer influence but underestimates the effect of interpeer attraction that may leverage every diffusion step of peer influence through the network. To fill this research gap, this study proposes a new method of measuring network user influence that incorporates peers' intrinsic factors, interpeer influence factors as homophily effect, and network structure. Homophily refers to the degree to which pairs of individuals who interact are similar with respect to certain attributes. Methodology: From the communication sender-receiver perspective, we developed a computable method that incorporates peer-based characteristics, the homophily effect, and the structural position of a user in the network to measure the social network user influence. Two empirical studies were subsequently conducted in a social network service-based online community and an online professional logistics community to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. Results and conclusions: The empirical results show that our proposed method provides higher prediction accuracy of user influence rank in an online community than the other existing methods. These findings lay a foundation for future theoretical exploration and provide a useful tool for targeting influential users in online communities such as blogs, bulletin board systems, and forums.

This book examines some of the many struggles that various programs in the field have endured in light of the "Great Recession" and shares the faculty’s initiative to take action to ensure the sustainability of their programs. Eleven essays written by 20 different contributors from a range of institutions assist in successfully achieving the book’s purpose—namely, providing methods and models for how academic programs can “do more with less” in an age of austerity. Program coordinators and those who teach program assessment should take heart in knowing that they do not face these challenges alone, and they might use this book to brainstorm and identify solutions for their programs.

The book’s 11 chapters consider the importance of theorizing, initiating, and sustaining relationships between academia and industries that employ graduates of those programs. The editors argue that a strong future for the field depends on more research into shared interests. Through asking both spheres to take action, Carolyn Rude’s Foreword clarifies that the audience for the book is both academics and industry professionals. Comprehensively, the book fulfills its goal to initiate a conversation; it is a sourcebook that explores multiple contexts and lenses. Therefore, readers looking for a practical resource for initiating partnerships with businesses and industries can easily identify and select the chapters relevant to their situation.

Research problem: Advisory boards provide an opportunity for technical communication programs to connect consistently with industry practitioners and on-campus stakeholders, and yet few recent studies examine best practices for advisory boards in technical communication programs. Research questions: (1) What is the typical makeup of a technical communication program advisory board? (2) What function do these advisory boards serve? (3) What are the typical successes and challenges of starting and maintaining a technical communication advisory board? (4) What are best practices for starting and maintaining a successful advisory board? (5) What are the similarities and differences in how program administrators and board members perceive the benefits and functions of the board? Literature review: Literature on advisory boards in technical and business communication-and in related fields such as communication, journalism, and marketing-reports that advisory boards are beneficial and effective, though many include caveats or recommendations about ways to improve board function. Methodology: To provide perspectives from both sides of the academy-industry relationship, we conducted 18 semistructured phone, Skype, and in-person interviews with program administrators (n = 10) from a host of nationwide programs and with board members (n = 8) from a single advisory board. Results and discussion: The study finds that the typical advisory board involves a mix of industry, faculty, and student members, with an emphasis on industry members. They advise the program about its curricular concerns, often foster students' academic and professional maturation, and support the program in conflicts with university administration. The typical successes of advisory boards included positive curricular amendment and the recruitment of students for jobs and internships, while characteristic challenges included meeting logistics and board members' concerns regarding the program's response to their advice. Program administrators and board members both perceive a board as useful, but some members expressed concern about the uncertainty of their role and influence. The results suggest that all technical communication programs should seriously consider forming an advisory board based on disciplinary best practices, that existing advisory boards should ensure that they have clarified the board's role for their program, and that stakeholders are aware of and attend to their board members' concerns.

Background: When an organization decides to adopt a technology, such as a content-management system (CMS), the choice affects writing styles and processes, and conversely, writing styles affect the implementation of the technology. This case study compares and contrasts the experiences of writers in organizations that implemented different types of CMSs: a web CMS (WCMS) and a component CMS (CCMS), with a focus on the different types of training given to each group to facilitate the implementations. Research questions: (1) What are the dependencies between technology choices and the corollary editorial constraints that writers must consider in order to realize the benefits that the technology can bring? (2) What types of training are needed to ensure that writers become fully productive in a collaborative, structured-authoring environment? Situating the case: When adopting structured information technologies, such as CMS, organizations seek to reduce costs and improve efficiencies through the reuse and better management of content components, such as text and images, which can significantly reduce the costs of translation, reproduction, and maintenance of publications. Structured information technologies, such as a CMS, Extensible Markup Language (XML), and Darwin Information Technology Architecture (DITA) affect technical communicators by changing writing styles to a more structured, topic-based approach, by introducing new tools and concepts for authoring and publishing, and by requiring more involvement in the selection, use, and maintenance of the technologies. Previous efforts to address these issues through training include works by Critchlow, who addressed the use of database systems to address challenges in developing documentation in collaborative environments; Edgell, who related how technical communicators proposed a CMS-based documentation solution to a software firm; and Lanier, who described how one organization overcame the resistance to new structured information technologies by writers. Methodology: The case was studied as an experience report by one of this article's authors (Bailie), in which the organizations engaged a consultant during their CMS implementation projects. The observations are qualitative and reflect consulting engagements with two teams over a period of almost three years. About the case: A common problem in implementing CMSs is interdependencies between content structures, on which the technology depends, and the editorial changes required to ensure that the content is best structured to take full advantage of the capabilities of the technology chosen. This case describes a four-phase training process provided to two clients: one with several contributors to the content-management effort in a single location; the other with more than a dozen contributors in several locations. Each client received four phase of training: (1) theoretical training-understanding pertinent theories behind good content development; (2) application of theory-how to apply the theories to their workplace; (3) software training-learning the new software to produce the content; (4) production-support immediately following training, during implementation. The results of the training were to increase the skill levels of the writers to understand how to leverage content in powerful ways using sophisticated technology. Conclusions: Determine the production needed for the content when choosing a class of CMS to address those production needs. Afterwards, match the training of the writers to the complexity of the system. Content strategists, project managers, technical communicators, and others involved in implementing a CMS need to allow sufficient time and training for writers to adjust their skills to the new technology and the new processes and techniques required to effectively use them.